Porter

Porter

Dark, roasty, and classic.

Porters were invented as a fortifying drink for the rough-and-tumble working class of London’s bustling markets. It was brewed for good folks with calluses on their hands, doing work that needed to be done. We salute those working-class heroes with our classic Porter, brewed in the hop-forward American style and featuring a depth of malt flavor and complexity with roasted notes of black coffee and cocoa.

Food Pairing

Brewing is as much art as science, and all beer specifications and raw materials are subject to change at our brewers' creative discretion.

Origin of Porter

The origins of porter are shrouded in mystery, but most agree that by the middle 1600s there were many beers of various styles referred to as porters not because of a singular flavor characteristic, but because of their intended audience—the hardworking folks shuttling gear in England’s bustling markets. In fact, porter as we know it today—roasty, dry and dark as midnight—would have been impossible to achieve because efficient and reliable malt roasters weren’t invented for another hundred years. One thing is certain though, porters developed alongside the Industrial Revolution and as brewing technology improved, so did the technique and quality of the beer. Porter was the first mass produced style of beer and the beer that helped build the mighty British brewing industry. It will forever be associated with London’s working class.

Stout versus Porter

While the exact origins of porter are hazy, the development of stout is more straightforward. By the 1700s bolder, high-alcohol versions of any style of beer were referred to as “stout” or strong. By then, porter was far and away the most popular beer style in the British Isles, and clever breweries began advertising the stronger versions of their beers as “stout porter.” By the late 1800s, regular porters had fallen out of favor and stout porter, or simply stout, took their place. There are many different varieties of stout ranging from the light bodied, low-alcohol Dry Irish Stout to the viscous, rich and strong Imperial Stout.

Specialty Malt

Malted barley generally falls into two camps: base malt and specialty malt. Base malt is highly modified malt that is responsible for producing the bulk of the fermentable sugars in the beer. Specialty malt is malt added for its flavor, color or effect on the body and mouthfeel of the finished beer. Specialty malts are typically produced by kilning and/or roasting barley. Caramel malt is made by placing germinated barley with a high moisture content directly into a roaster. The resulting malt produces unfermentable sugars during the mashing process, adding sweetness and body to finished beer. Roasted malt is base malt that has been placed in a roaster similar to a coffee roaster to produce deeper, darker, baker’s cocoa and espresso flavors like those common in a porter or a stout.